Tears for Queers: Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, Hollywood, and American Attitudes toward Homosexuality

Abstract

Every once in while film comes along that changes our perceptions so much that cinema history thereafter has to arrange itself around it . . . is just such film. Even for audiences educated by decade of Queer Cinema phenomenon ... it's shift in scope and tenor so profound as to signal new era. -B. Ruby Rich on Ang Lee's film adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story Brokeback Mountain has widely been praised as brave and daring film. Supposedly it takes on iconic image of cowboy as epitome of American heterosexual masculinity and exposes fact that, in words of singer/ songwriter Ned Sublette, are frequently, secretly fond of each other.1 Review after review referred to Lee's film as first ever (Clark, New Vistas; Clark, Westerns; A. Thompson) or cowboy (Stein; Clarke 29; A. Thompson; D'Angelo) and hails it as bending (A. Thompson) groundbreaker (Clark, Westerns, A. Thompson,) of movie that has queered Western (Rich 8). When won three Academy Awards in 2006 (for Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screen Play, and Best Director), critics saw this official approbation as sign of radical breakthrough in representation of on screen and commended Hollywood for its boldness in humanizing love between two men in mainstream film for very first time.2 Ingrid Sischy, former editor-in-chief of Interview, interpreted this purported change in representation of male-male affection as a sign of America's readiness to humanize and civilize its attitude towards homosexuality (88). Claims of such seismic shifts in social attitudes towards are greatly exaggerated. Now that discussions in mainstream and queer publications, in blogs, and on-line chat rooms are themselves history, there is sufficient critical distance to reconsider assertions concerning historic significance of Lee's film. In particular, this essay will examine definitions of as genre-busting (Johnson 988) queer Western and first gay love story, which supposedly not only constituted radical break in history of in American movies, but also ushered in kinder, gentler attitude towards in American society. In fact, neither of these claims will hold up if one considers Lee's film in context of history of representing in American cinema. Cowboys, Queers, and Western When it comes to analyzing representation of in American films no book has been as been as influential as Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in Movies (1981). No doubt, impact of Russo's text was further enhanced by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's 1995 documentary film based on book. While The Celluloid Closet may lack theoretical sophistication of much contemporary queer film criticism, it will prove helpful here for two specific reasons. To begin with, as Michael Bronski argues in recent review essay, the continuing power of Russo's book resides in its political analysis of social and cultural (emphasis added). In addition to Russo's critique of homophobia as socio-cultural phenomenon (rather than mere personal aversion), The Celluloid Closet is also notable for its sheer encyclopedic coverage of in films ranging from silent era to early 1980s (in Russo's book) or early 1990s (in Epstein and Friedman's eponymous documentary). One thing The Celluloid Closet makes clear is that Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist are no more first gay cowboys in American film than is first queer Western. Perhaps what comes to mind most immediately when one thinks about and Western genre are Western spoofs, from Andy Warhol's Lonesome Cowboys (1969) to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974). …